Shadows in Scarlet (31 page)

Amanda wondered whether she was that easy to read or whether Malcolm was exceptionally sharp. She might as well cut to the chase. “Yes and no. Archibald did kill James, he says as much in his memoirs."

"Bluidy hell,” Malcolm said reverently.

"But it was in a duel. James challenged Archibald when he—Archibald—told the owner of Melrose, Page Armstrong, that James was threatening the virtue of his daughter."

"That's been in that tatty old manuscript all the while?"

"Yes, but I think you'd have to know about the Armstrongs and James's body in the garden and everything in advance, or it wouldn't necessarily make sense. I mean, assuming your grandfather read it all the way through—he must've been a man of rare stamina..."

"A proper scholar, he was."

"...he'd have realized that Archibald killed a fellow officer in a duel. He might even have guessed who it was, because Archibald hints that he and his challenger had the same name, and then says he was horrified when the news of Donald's death arrived after James's death and he realized it was ‘by his own hand’ he'd inherited the estate."

"But since everyone kent that James died in battle..."

"...your grandfather,” concluded Amanda, “might not have made that guess. Even if he did, he must have kept it to himself."

"The thirties bein’ a more discreet time than our ain,” added Malcolm. “Why, the British papers didna say a word aboot Mrs. Simpson almost until Edward VIII abdicated for her."

He was intrigued, Amanda estimated, but hardly upset.
Good.
That was one weight off her shoulders, at least.

"There're some letters, too,” she went on, “which all fit into the picture. I got so absorbed I didn't take a single note. I guess I'd better wade back in tomorrow and make some copies. Maybe you could take some pictures of me at work. Carrie will love it, her—our—article will read like a detective story. From the legend, garbled as it is, to the forensic evidence to the documentation to the sword in your hall, it all fits."

"And posh Mrs. Snotty will love it, too.” Malcolm grinned, teeth flashing, his expression for an instant so like James's Amanda felt dizzy. His hand took hers in a firm, warm clasp and she steadied.

She liked the way her hand fit snugly into Malcolm's, and how they both balanced on her denim-clad thigh....
Am I on the rebound or what?

She asked, “I take it you're not going with anybody, either?"

"No. I'm by way of bein’ in the market, though."

"Yeah, me too.”
Did I say that?
Amanda had to laugh. Two weeks ago her love life had been dead in the water. Now it was moving at warp speed. “This is all happening a little bit too fast."

"Sorry.” With a squeeze he took his hand back. “Noo that I've left university, it's a wee bit difficult meetin’ attractive women wi’ similar interests. I'm comin’ on to you too strong."

"Don't apologize. I'm just preoccupied right now. It's kind of an emotional roller coaster, you know.” Well no, he didn't know. “After the funeral,” she finished.

"Oh, so he's hauntin’ you, is he? I never had a ghost for a rival before."

Amanda opened her mouth and shut it again. He was speaking metaphorically, yes, but what was she supposed to do? Tell him the supernatural and only too literal sequel to the story and have
him
think she was crazy? She didn't think so. She settled for, “Yeah, I've gotten so wrapped up in my work James is almost real to me."

Malcolm nodded soothingly. It was his candid blue-gray gaze that was unsettling. He had James's carved lips and intelligent eyes, but his appreciation of irony was tuned more finely, aimed not at arrogant self-awareness but at perception of everything and everyone around him.

Amanda turned the conversation toward safer areas. “I guess it would be a problem, living out here with just your mother and the Finlays. Of course, if I owned a castle brimming with history, I wouldn't go anywhere else, either."

"Oh aye, it's grand place and no mistake. The problem is I dinna own it. Neither does Mum. It's my brother's. The old law o’ primogeniture—the property goes wi’ the title, to the eldest child."

"That's right, your mother said something about him not being interested in the property."

"Ah, no, he's too much the Sassenach these days, turnin’ his back on his ain history."

"The what?"

"Sassenach. An insultin', if a bit old-fashioned, term for Englishman. Etymologically I'm thinkin’ it means ‘Saxon.’”

"My name is Saxon,” Amanda said.

"But you'd be respectin’ an historical property, eh?” Malcolm shook his head. “The title's well and truly Archie's and he's welcome to it. But we're workin’ on a way he can sell Dundreggan to Mum and me—for a parcel o’ English gold, I reckon. I dinna want to have to kill him for it, another round o’ death duties would be the ruin o’ us."

Amanda met Malcolm's smile with one of her own. Maybe it was the hand of fate, as the earlier Archibald had put it, which was leading her from the bones in the garden through James's brief embrace to this other garden and to a very alive and substantial Malcolm. Maybe it only a chain of happenstance. Whatever. Tomorrow she'd gladly—if cautiously—dive into the stream and let herself go with the flow.

Shadows stretched across the garden. The roses bobbed up and down coyly. Far overhead glided a hawk or a falcon. Cerberus pulled his head out of a bush and strolled toward the gate, his tail wagging. Norah peered through the doorway. “There you are! How's your work getting on, Amanda?"

Malcolm offered his seat to his mother. With a nod of thanks she sat down.

"It's going really well,” Amanda replied. “Thanks."

"Wait ‘til you hear the tale,” said Malcolm. “Little did we ken all this time that old Archibald had a skeleton in his cupboard. The very skeleton that's dozin’ in the hall noo."

"Oh, aye?” Norah prodded.

Amanda repeated what she'd told Malcolm, this time adding more detail.

Norah listened, the rise and fall of her brows annotating the story. At last she whistled. “And here I was thinking Archibald a bit of a prat."

"Like his namesake, my brother,” Malcolm said cheerfully.

Norah shot him a warning glance. To Amanda she said, “You'll be wanting to take the proper documentation back to the States with you. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Thank you. I hope none of this embarrasses you."

"Why should it? I may be my brother's keeper, but I'm certainly not my ancestor's. No one ever thought James a saint. Or Archibald, for that matter. I'll be dining out on this story for months.” Norah stood up. “Here, I came to call you for dinner. You must be hungry, Amanda, especially since you had no lunch."

"Did you bring me the sandwich? I'm sorry, I never noticed."

"No worry. The cats made a good job of it."

Amanda laughed. Malcolm grinned. Cerberus bounded through the gate, forging a path toward the kitchen.

The household lingered a long time over raspberry trifle and coffee, discussing the scandalous events of the eighteenth century. If Amanda accidentally let slip one or two items she'd learned not from archaeology or historiography but from the supernatural, the Grants and the Finlays took it in stride, probably thinking it was the usual educated make-believe.

When Amanda walked back through the entrance hall she found a damp wind keening through the front door. The sunny afternoon had turned to an early evening. She glanced outside. Clouds filled the sky and erased the distant mountains. The vibrant green of the grass had faded. It looked like she'd been really lucky to have sunshine her first couple of days in Scotland.

She flicked the light switch at the bottom of the stairwell. The bulbs on each landing left swathes of shadow on the steps themselves. Up she went, and forced herself to stop and look at James's portrait. But his gaze, as usual, was self-absorbed. Now Amanda understood why Isabel had been so skeptical about dashing James. Why she'd defaulted to colorless Archibald.

Dashing might work for a brief affair but for the long haul colorless was the way to.... Well, no, Amanda thought, surely you could split the difference.

She scanned the other portraits as she passed. One was a forbidding Victorian gentleman, mutton chop whiskers and all, who was a dead ringer for Archibald. A grandson, maybe. Hard to believe a personable person like Malcolm was descended from such a line of humorless heavies.
Come on,
she told herself. That's just the way they had their portraits painted is all. In private they probably scratched where it itched just like everyone else.

The dimness in the great hall clotted into deep shadow in the corners. Amanda caught a reflected gleam either from the display case or from the sword inside, but the wooden crate was just a lump on the floor. A lump of clay, which is what James's feet were made of. “Damn it all anyway,” she murmured as she turned away, but with more weariness than resentment.

Amanda groped inside the library door for the light switch. She blinked in the sudden burst of light. “Shit!"

The pages of Archibald's memoirs made a trail from the settee to the fireplace. Several were actually inside the grate, wadded like kindling. But, judging by the space heater next to the desk and the polished andirons on the hearth, the fireplace hadn't been used for years.

James was trying to hide the evidence. But it was too late, she'd already read the story—no. His disembodied emotions sensed Archibald's heavy hand and lashed out at it. They sensed Amanda's agitation and tried to eliminate the cause, just like the time....

Oh my God,
she thought. Like the time Wayne fell down the staircase, soon after he'd actually laid hands on her. She'd asked him if he'd seen anything. She'd never asked him if he
felt
anything, a push or a trip.

Chilled, Amanda gathered up the pages of Archibald's manuscript and smoothed the crumpled ones. Thank goodness James—James's uncontrolled temper—hadn't found a candle to play with this time. Thank goodness he didn't know he could have turned on the space heater and stuffed the pages inside the bars. They would have burned, then. So would Dundreggan Castle.

By the time Malcolm strolled into the room she was back on the settee, putting the pages into order. He raised a brow at her startled reaction to his entrance, but said nothing.

Malcolm printed out his drawings to the music of the Rolling Stones, every now and then playing accompaniment on air guitar. Amanda kept waiting for thunder and lightning, appropriate special effects for a haunted evening, but except for the occasional gust of wind that echoed Mick Jagger's wail, the evening was silent.

"Will you sit yoursel's doon?” Malcolm demanded.

Amanda looked up. The cats were prowling restlessly around the room, over the desk, and across his drawings. Every now and then one of them would go to the door and peer out. “It's the wind,” she stated.

"Oh aye,” Malcolm said, but his eye turned speculatively from the cats to Amanda and back again.

From downstairs came a burst of excited barking, quickly shushed by Norah's calm voice. The cats oozed beneath the settee and crouched with their paws tucked tightly beneath their bodies, in the shadows looking like two giant dust-bunnies.

Malcolm was still marking the prints with a red pencil when Amanda gave it up for the night. Tempting as it was to stay here with him, her nerves felt like they'd been stretched on a rack. If she was going to scream, she'd better do it alone.

She tucked all the incriminating papers back into the cabinet and shut the door. “Good night, Malcolm."

He looked up with a smile. “Good night. From ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night..."

"I'd rather have the beasties, thanks.” She felt his eyes on her back as she left the room, and was sure she felt other eyes on her back as she walked along the corridors.

Her door had a lock but no key. Not that a lock would keep him out. Amanda turned on the bathroom light. The floor was littered with pink and yellow blossoms. Every flower in the window alcove had been beheaded. The bare stalks stood up like a handful of arrows.
James, don't make it worse!

Nothing.

Amanda gathered up the scattered petals. She took a hot shower and left the bathroom light on and the door ajar. She pulled the comforter to her chin and gazed into the artificial twilight.

Footsteps walked down the hall, the floor creaking at each stride. It was either Malcolm or Norah. Amanda tried willing herself to sleep. She heard another set of footsteps punctuated by creaks and the sound of a door shutting. Water pipes groaned. The window rattled gently.

Slowly she began to relax. James's childish display of spite had worn him out. He'd gone back to sleep. Tomorrow he'd sleep for eternity, a troubled soul finally at rest.

He'd better rest. She'd done all she could for him.

Through her doze she heard approaching steps. Just steps, no creaks. Instantly she was wide awake, staring through the shadows toward her door. The doorknob turned. But the door never opened. An icy draft billowed through the room. A furtive gleam of scarlet winked in the shadows.

Amanda shut her eyes and slowed her breathing. She didn't want to confront him. She didn't want to tell him no, when just a few days ago she'd so enthusiastically told him yes.

His steps came toward her, the slow, painful steps of a wounded man. She smelled not whiskey but the repulsive breath of a drinker at the end of a long drunk.

"My own,” James said, close beside the bed. “My sweet."

Amanda didn't answer.

"Sweeting."

She felt a tug at the comforter. Fingertips stroked her hair. His reek made her gag. “I'm tired,” she murmured drowsily. “The trip over here, you know...."

"Ah yes, the boat a mere cockleshell in Neptune's mighty hand. But we have come at last safely to Dundreggan. It is much changed, I fear."

"Mmmph,” she said.

His icy hand grasped her shoulder, his fingers digging into her flesh. She shuddered, and not necessarily from the cold. “Have you changed, Amanda? Here, amid the lying tongues of my relations, Isabel changed."